Finally, improved outcome measures are needed to standardize HS severity and grading between physicians and clinical trials, and a more diverse representation of HS populations is needed in clinical trials.Starvation resistance, or the ability to survive periods without food, can shed light on selection pressure imposed by food scarcity, including chances to invade new regions as a result of human transport. Surprisingly, little information is known about starvation resistance for invasive insect species. Given that native and invasive populations differ in starvation resistance, this would suggest different selection scenarios and adaptive shifts fostering invasion success. Here, we show striking differences in starvation resistance of adult small hive beetles Aethina tumida (SHB) between native and invasive populations. In the laboratory, starvation resistance of freshly emerged laboratory-reared and field-collected adult females and males was evaluated in the beetle's native African range and in their invasive North American range. SHB in their native African range survived longer than SHB in their invasive North American range. Across ranges, females survived longer than males. Field-collected SHB survived in Africa longer than freshly emerged ones, but not in the invasive range. This suggests no selection for starvation resistance in the invasive range, possibly due to differences between African and European-derived honey bee hosts facilitating a trade-off scenario between reproduction and starvation resistance. The ability of adult females to survive up to two months without food appears to be one factor contributing to the invasion success of this species. Assuming food availability is usually high in the invasive ranges, and trade-offs between starvation resistance and fecundity/reproduction are common, it seems as if selection for starvation resistance during transport could set up potential trade-offs that enhance reproduction after invasion. It would be interesting to see if this is a possible general pattern for invasive insect species.How community-level specialization differs among groups of organisms, and changes along environmental gradients, is fundamental to understanding the mechanisms influencing ecological communities. In this paper, we investigate the specialization of root-associated fungi for plant species, asking whether the level of specialization varies with elevation. For this, we applied DNA barcoding based on the ITS region to root samples of five plant species equivalently sampled along an elevational gradient at a high arctic site. To assess whether the level of specialization changed with elevation and whether the observed patterns varied between mycorrhizal and endophytic fungi, we applied a joint species distribution modeling approach. Our results show that host plant specialization is not environmentally constrained in arctic root-associated fungal communities, since there was no evidence for changing specialization with elevation, even if the composition of root-associated fungal communities changed substantially. However, the level of specialization for particular plant species differed among fungal groups, root-associated endophytic fungal communities being highly specialized on particular host species, and mycorrhizal fungi showing almost no signs of specialization. Our results suggest that plant identity affects associated mycorrhizal and endophytic fungi differently, highlighting the need of considering both endophytic and mycorrhizal fungi when studying specialization in root-associated fungal communities.Phenotypic plasticity allows organisms to alter their phenotype in direct response to changes in the environment. Despite growing recognition of plasticity's role in ecology and evolution, few studies have probed plasticity's molecular bases-especially using natural populations. We investigated the genetic basis of phenotypic plasticity in natural populations of spadefoot toads (Spea multiplicata). Spea tadpoles normally develop into an "omnivore" morph that is favored in long-lasting, low-density ponds. However, if tadpoles consume freshwater shrimp or other tadpoles, they can alternatively develop (via plasticity) into a "carnivore" morph that is favored in ephemeral, high-density ponds. By combining natural variation in pond ecology and morph production with population genetic approaches, we identified candidate loci associated with each morph (carnivores vs. omnivores) and loci associated with adaptive phenotypic plasticity (adaptive vs. maladaptive morph choice). Our candidate morph loci mapped to two genes, whereas our candidate plasticity loci mapped to 14 genes. In both cases, the identified genes tended to have functions related to their putative role in spadefoot tadpole biology. Our results thereby form the basis for future studies into the molecular mechanisms that mediate plasticity in spadefoots. More generally, these results illustrate how diverse loci might mediate adaptive plasticity.The dispersal routes of taxa with transoceanic disjunctions remain poorly understood, with the potential roles of Antarctica not yet demonstrated. https://www.selleckchem.com/products/conteltinib-ct-707.html Mosses are suitable organisms to test direct intra-Antarctic dispersal, as major component of the extant Antarctic flora, with the cosmopolitan moss Bryum argenteum as ideal target species. We analyzed the genetic structure of B. argenteum to provide an evolutionary time frame for its radiation and shed light into its historical biogeography in the Antarctic region. We tested two alternative scenarios (a) intra-Antarctic panmixia and (b) intra-Antarctic genetic differentiation. Furthermore, we tested for evidence of the existence of specific intra-Antarctic dispersal routes. Sixty-seven new samples (40 collected in Antarctica) were sequenced for ITS nrDNA and rps4 cpDNA regions, and phylogenetic trees of B. argenteum were constructed, with a focus on its Southern Hemisphere. Combining our new nrDNA dataset with previously published datasets, we estimated time-calib that B. argenteum has been characterized by strong connectivity within Antarctica, suggesting the existence of intra-Antarctic dispersal routes.